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Slumjack Jurryrigger
Name: Slumjack Jurryrigger Family: Scrimshaws Age: Early Thirties Body Type: Average Eye Color: Green Hair Color: Mottled Proffession: Engineer, CEO, Scavenger Trade: Weapons and Armor Systems Development Affiliations: The Paladin Corporation, St. Saintly's Institute for the Advancement of Technological Advancement, Dwarven Military Organiations Slumjack is a fairly typical Gnome, he's short, wiry, keen of wit, with a peculiar nervous tension right behind his left eye. Though that last part probably isn't typical. He has fair skin and green eyes whilst his hair is a dark brown mottled with blonde, his beard and mustache seems to grow out with every color in mind though it remains dark to the naked eye only closer inspection reveals the difference. He's middle aged but it's not particularily easy to pin down exatly how old and since he's long since forgotten himself it's become something of a tabloid-worthy mystery. There always seems to be some kind of grease or dirt or other smudge on his face and hands, tell-tale indication of a absentminded work habits. His clothing and gear seem fairly well taken care of. While obviously dirty and worn he keeps them repaired and held together properly. Slumjack is usually in some kind of hood or hat, keeping the brim low over his brow with his eyes shaded even when there is no sun. He wears a sort of makeshift camoflauge of blacks and browns that seems to make him hard to spot against most urban enviroments and nature settings alike. Boots and gloves on his hands and feet respectively leaving his body almost entirely covered at all times. He often pulls a think cloth over his mouth, tieing it around his head, this could very well be for added visual cover or it could be to help with the stench of a decaying city's population. He's attatched extra pockets and bags to his gear all over the place. He rarely if ever seems to carry any weapons but when he does he seems to prefer rifles, a long rifle with makeshift scope slung over his back. Now, perhaps obviously, Sumjack wasn't always named Slumjack. Slumjack's birth name was Obidiah Scrimshaw. In Gnomish culture family names often reflect a family trade or business. This is not the case of the Scrimshaws, at no point in their family history had any of them ever worked with whale bones. In fact there's only one reference to any of them even living on or near the sea, the first recorded Scrimshaw, Dundunder Scrimshaw who was a sea-merchant in the olden days. It's generally believed he was born into the Goldslinger clan but changed his name to Scrimshaw in order to create a false image of himself and promote his budding new shipping business. Be that as it may, Slumjack the Jurryrigger was born Obidiah of the Scrimshaws with three brothers and five sisters to his parents Grandeur Scrimshaw and Murrianni Scrimshaw. Obidiah being the middle child and first born son. It's often common practice in Gnoman culture to change one's name after a change of proffession or to celebrate a milestone or marriage or to escape fame or infamy or just to change it to something that sparkles. So, after the outbreak Obidiah Scrimshaw became Slumjack Jurryrigger. He chose this to represent his new life as a Slum-thieving, Jury Riggin' scavenger. He's very well aware it's misspelled, by the way, it was intentional because he'd never seen a name with four r's before. Whenever there is a disaster, a cataclysm, a tragedy, or any other terrible event there are the obvious casualties. The injured, the wounded, the dead, the pained, the martyred, the murdered but what is frequently over-looked are the mental casualties the sane made insane, that is the category Slumjack belongs. Here is the story of Slumjack prior to the scourge. He was born into a family of computer engineers and programmers living in a primarily halfling society, needless to say they were the odd-men out in that place but to edge on Slumjack's sense of displacement he himself was not adept at computers he instead found himself inclined toward enginnering of the mechanical and chemical types making him the oddball in a family of oddballs. This was fine by him, for the most part, while his family struggled to keep work he had less trouble working with the halflings. There was always work for him be it tractors to fix, tools to machine, irrigation to design, pesticides and herbicides to develop there was always something the farming community needed of him. This wasn't exactly his dream though, he never felt particularily accomplished doing these mundane things and before too long he found himself lusting for greater things. Just after his twentieth birthday he left the village to seek fame and fourtune in the greater cities. This hope would be short lived however, as he came to quickly realize that while his expertise was greatly appreciated in the small farming community where very few bothered to learn it, those gifts were far less aprreciated in the larger cities where many others already had plied those trades for generations. In an act of desperation he enrolled himself in the St. Saintly institute for the advancement of technological advancement, founded by the first Gnomish saint of the catholic faith in the thirtieth year of human involvement it took in wayward tech-wizards in an attempt at bringing together would-be geniouses into a free think tank. It was here he had two great experiences which shaped his life forever changing it. Firstly he met his mentor, the briliant human inventor Charles "Chucklebuck" Buckley who helped lead him into christianity and secondly he met his first real freinds whom Slumjack simply refer to as "the board". It was these seven people who kept Slumjack grounded and focused for many years while he developed his masterwork idea, The Paladin Corporation. In his desperation to make a mark on the world he decided to go into the one field of research no one else on the planet seemed interested in, weapons and arms. Of course, in a world primarily at peace there was very little want or need for weapons development so investors were slow to come and mostly human and dwarven in background so for the entirety of it's inception it struggled greatly. This struggle sparked the Corporation's slogan, "The Paladin Corporation, One day you'll actually need us." For many long years the company struggled as Slumjack and the Board struggled to find investors and trade contracts until one fortuitous night they managed to secure a contract developing weapons for the dwarven military. It was a small contract but enough to ensure they could all finally live comfortable lives and no longer eat meals primarily composed of Orc Crunchy Bites and Freeze Dried Noodles. For a number of years the Paladin Corporation did okay selling designs to the dwarves and developing small weapon systems for self defense. However these were the years leading up to outbreak and before long the world would decend into chaos, everything Slumjack worked for, all the people he loved and the intitutions he adored would be taken away from him violently and in a shock of dissodence his mind would snap, unable to cope with the disaster he had a psychotic breakdown and formed a scizophrenic world inside his own mind where he is still the CEO of Paladin and his Board of Directors are still in play. This insanity goes so deep that he only barely recognizes the existance of zombies, to him they're just a demographic he's having trouble reaching but if he could figure out how he would absolutely find a way to sell them stuff. At least his company's slogan was very much accurate.